


Coin Toss

by inkcharm



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, F/F, Hope, Loss, Minor Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5241059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkcharm/pseuds/inkcharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps, similarly, she kept going on in another reality she's now left behind. Perhaps there is even one reality fractured off from her path in which everyone dies, but Chloe doesn't. Perhaps that hurts just as much, but different. Perhaps she lost the coin toss, but won it, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coin Toss

It is only then, as the world trembles underfoot, that she takes her first full breath.

 

And just like that, amidst the torrential rain and the howling wind, the sounds of Arcadia Bay dying too far away for them to make a difference, the world calms and slows with the way Max' lungs expand, filling with cool air and the understanding that a coin needs to be tossed, yet no amount of tickling in her fingertips would help her flip it after it's landed.

 

How quickly she'd gotten used to knowing no choice to be permanent, no decision made to last. It makes sense now, how the fabric of time has come undone around her. How she's come undone trying to edit together the collage she felt was right, with imperfections airbrushed out, and unwanted details cut out and pasted over with something shiny and smooth. But she's a photographer; moments are made to be captured, not altered.

 

Suck it, Photoshop.

 

“I'm so sorry.”

 

The coin lands face down, and face down she only sees the dirty bathroom floor, the sound of the gun going off seared into her mind along with the feel of Chloe's lips against hers. No amount of salt dripping down her cheeks can take that away.

 

There's a scar on her heart that no one will be able to understand, because the punishment for all her editing and copying and pasting and cutting and changing is that she knows every version of the world she could have had.

 

She could have had Chloe. The bang of the gun makes her fingertips tingle, and through the blur of tears she can almost see the world speed past her backwards, familiar and haunting. But instead, she fists both hands in her hair and screams on he inside.

 

Nathan tells the authorities… well, everything. Doesn't even wait for his father to send all the lawyers money can buy. Max remembers his phone call. He still killed Rachel and Chloe, but she knows know that Jefferson killed something in Nathan long ago. Once a week, Victoria disappears, and everyone pretends not to know where she goes. Once a week, Max goes into the dormitory bathroom in the middle of the night to help Taylor through her nightly anxiety in Victoria's absence.

 

The problem about photos is that their frame gives you a very limited view of reality.

 

Victoria doesn't post the video, Kate doesn't almost jump. Max still knows Victoria would have been haunted by her actions, and Kate would have survived. So she meets for tea with one to let bright memories follow dark ones, and whittles at the other's sharp edges with kind words. Go fuck yourselfie is, after all, actually kind of funny. No rewind, just patience. And if Victoria will never be her friend, at least perhaps they won't be enemies, and she will neither end up in the ground with Rachel and Nathan, nor will she be saved only to be buried under debris.

 

Chloe is lowered into the ground, and Max feels like she will never be okay. The tingle from her hand had faded at the same time the shot's echo did, and so the coffin can only ever go down. David has to hold Joyce up, and Max knows that they're both a little more dead on the inside for having lost a daughter.

 

Victoria is at the funeral. She bears the pain of a family's grief because Nathan can't, but someone should. Kate is at the funeral. She doesn't jump in this face down version of the world, but understands now what death looks like for those who have to stay behind. There is no outpouring of support for her here, but there is tea, and there are blank spaces on slates instead of nasty messages. Warren is at the funeral. He doesn't understand the age in Max' eyes, but understands that somewhere between before and after, he is not a maybe. So his shoulder is one of support, not hope, and somehow, that is less painful than he feared. Max is at the funeral. She will never forget. She has a head full of instant photographs, and a heart full of love, and a future empty of Chloe. The sun shines on her funeral. Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah.

 

Alyssa is sometimes hit in the head by flying objects. Max can't always warn her, but she can hug her and laugh with her about her bad luck. Dana dances with Trevor. Brooke goes Ape with Warren. Frank leaves town with Pompidou. Max sits in the same booth at the diner every morning. Joyce cries, but also smiles. David is broken, but he can help Joyce heal. Nathan doesn't go to prison, but into psychiatric care. Jefferson goes to prison, but there are no buts for him. Max has loved and lost, but _loved_.

 

No first rewind, no ripple effect, no storm, except the one Max still tastes on her lips along with Chloe. When she saved William, spent a day with an alternative Chloe, she eventually returned to find time passed in her reality. Perhaps, similarly, she kept going on in another reality she's now left behind. Perhaps there is a world in which she fulfilled Chloe's last request and has to face the fallout. Perhaps there is another reality in which Jefferson gets away. Perhaps there is even one reality fractured off from her path in which everyone dies, but Chloe doesn't. Perhaps that hurts just as much, but different.

 

Without Chloe, but with everyone else, perhaps she lost the coin toss, but won it, too.

 

Face down is a painful, hopeful world.

 

A hopeful, painful world is facing up.

 

The coin lands face up, and to keep her face up is all Max can do as they drive through the skeletal remains of Arcadia Bay. The world is silent and eerie, sunshine draped over ruins like a sign that life goes on. Birds in the sky, deer on the road. She owes it to them all to watch for signs of life, even life lost.

 

Choices have consequences.

 

They leave Arcadia Bay behind, and it hurts, it hurts so much. For weeks the papers are full of stories about the efforts of digging up the town. People have survived. People have died. Max stops looking for names she knows. Chloe cries for her mother. Chloe doesn't sacrifice herself for Arcadia Bay, but honours the sacrifice of Arcadia Bay.

 

Max takes photos. Chloe photobombs. Going forwards, facing up, there are a hundred kisses, perhaps a thousand, once they've gained some distance, once they've cried and healed and allowed themselves to live again. They have loved and lost, but they still _have_ love.

 

Perhaps one life wasn't worth all the others. Perhaps it was, for all those other lives they can now reach and touch and enrich.

 

Without everyone else, but with one another, perhaps they lost the coin toss, but won it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I just finished the game. And in my world, both endings happen. Max makes both choices, and both lives happen. She gets her happy ending, but so does everyone else, and both versions hurt, but both versions are beautiful, too. 
> 
> No but seriously, I couldn't decide, except I loved Victoria and Nathan and Kate and everyone too much, in the end. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
